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Fairness for all wagering participants

Memo to AFL on INTEGRITY

Mixed success. That’s how you could describe our campaign to get bookies to take a racing bet from winning punters. While some have reported a positive experience, it’s all too evident that many Australian bookmakers continue to thumb their nose at Racing NSW’s Minimum Bet rule. This is particularly the case with so-called “indicative pricing” where by winning punters are offered a lower price than that served up on a platter to losing punters. Ka-ching!

With the 2015 kick-off of the biggest game in the land – the AFL – it’s time to turn a little attention to sport.

Readers will no doubt be familiar with all the “betting scandals” that have enveloped the game of Aussie Rules over the summer. The latest involved Collingwood’s Jack Crisp placing bets on an AFL market totaling, wait for it – $129. At the same time, the AFL announced it had sacked a scoring official for the year after permitting 62 bets totaling $362 be placed using his account. Yes, the average bet was $6. Sacked!

Rule breaches they were, but announced from the rooftops in the name of INTEGRITY. How heroic.

MEMO TO THE AFL

Here’s what the AFL can do about integrity – force their wagering partners to take a bet from winning punters.

The AFL have revenue and information sharing agreements with most if not all Australian-licensed bookmakers. The AFL take a share of revenue generated from betting on the game and bookmakers sift through their records to match names and report any anomalies to the AFL Integrity Unit.

We also know that winning clients are severely restricted to amounts that are hardly even worth the trouble of logging in at just about each and every Australian-licensed bookie.

The same punters are exposed to tweets like this from Pinnacle Sports.com (licensed in Curacao (a Dutch island in the southern Caribbean sea) and Malta).

Here is what a winning punter can get on at the line with Sportsbet on Monday’s Hawthorn v Geelong match.

And here is what PinnacleSports.com will bet the same winning punter.

$217 versus $13,777.

The AFL kiss goodbye to the revenue and have no idea who is betting. That is where you lose INTEGRITY – not from $6 bets.

Force your partner bookmakers to bet punters a reasonable amount and they don’t need to head offshore.

Another scenario. Say I’m a dopey insider at an AFL club after a quick buck. I’ve got news that the three best players are out for the weekend. It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m about to beat the massive line move by placing a few bets at Pinnacle. He could most probably get three bets on – up to $40,000 – before a significant line move.

You think Pinnacle Sports will be divulging the name of the punter who sparked a plunge to the AFL? Players and officials, you know where to bet.